Photographer Roman Veillon captures rotting and decrepit sites of abandonment. While his overgrown mansions and dilapidated discotheques are certainly mesmerizing, it’s his pictures of Buzludzha Monument, set high in the Balkans of Bulgaria that feel truly otherworldly—simultaneously ghostly and futuristic.

Built in 1981, Buzludzha Monument looks like the ship ruins of an ancient race of alien apparatchiks. The site is totally closed off from the public now (Veillon had to sneak in). Its abandonment is nothing short of a tragedy. Aside from the singular architecture (which took seven years and 6,000 workers to complete), the interior is filled with beautifully ornate mosaic work, much of which was created by the foremost Bulgarian artists of the time.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Via Dazed